1.Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a deflector of a sliding roof of a vehicle.
2.Description of the Related Art
When a vehicle drives with an opening of its sliding roof opened, an airflow along the roof and air flow suctioned out of the inside of the vehicle interfere with each other, which causes periodical variations in air pressure in the opening of the roof and excites resonance, generating unpleasant harsh low frequency vibrations called as “wind throb”.
Generally, as described in JP 3668378 B and JP 02-54627 U for example, it has been understood that wind throb is generated when the air flow along the roof hits a rear edge of the opening; therefore, in order to address such disadvantage, a sliding roof is provided with a deflector having a blade that projects upward from the front edge of the opening when the opening is opened. Such a deflector serves for deflecting air flow flowing over the roof in the diagonally upward in the front to rear direction by the blade thereof, so that the air flow more upwardly passing over without interfering with the rear edge of the opening of the sliding roof, thereby to reduce wind throb.
Recently, a sliding roof for a vehicle is tend to employ a larger opening in the front and rear direction of a vehicle to meet user's needs for interior comfort, etc. To satisfy such needs, as the length of an opening becomes larger, a deflector blade should be designed to have a greater height so as to let air flow pass more upwardly over the rear edge of the opening. On the other hand, it has also been desired to reduce a thickness of a sliding roof system so as to secure an interior height of a vehicle. In this sense, if employing a blade member with a greater projection height, it may be difficult to secure a housing space for housing the blade at the time of closing the sliding roof.
JP 02-54627 U discloses a technique to lay down a blade and house it when closing a sliding roof, as well as to turn and stand up the blade when opening the sliding roof. This technique realizes to ensure a greater blade projection height as well as a more housing space for housing the blade at the same time. However, the deflector disclosed in JP 02-54627 U has a structure requiring a pair of links as a turning mechanism, in which one is for turning the blade and the other is for standing up it; therefore, there are difficulties such as lower assemblability of the deflector.
In order to address the above difficulties, the present invention provides a deflector of a sliding roof having a structure to house a blade in a laid down state, facilitating a turning mechanism of the blade and realizing ease of assembly for the deflector.